The Leatherstocking Tales II

by James Fenimore Cooper

  “I have no liking for the woods,” said Cap, “while one has a clear drift like this on the river. Besides, Master Pathfinder, to say nothing of the savages, you overlook the sharks.”

  “Sharks! Who ever heard of sharks in the wilderness?”

  “Ay sharks, or bears, or wolves—no matter what you call a thing so it has the mind and the power to bite.”

  “Lord, lord, man; do you dread any creatur’ that is to be found in the American forest! A catamount is a skeary animal, I will allow, but then it is nothing in the hands of a practysed hunter. Talk of the Mingos, and their deviltries, if you will; but do not raise a false alarm, about bears and wolves.”

  “Ay, ay, Master Pathfinder, this is all well enough for you, who probably know the name of every creature you would meet. Use is every thing, and it makes a man bold, when he might otherwise be bashful. I have known seamen in the low latitudes, swim for hours at a time, among sharks fifteen, or twenty feet long, and think no more of what they were doing, than a countryman thinks of whom he is amongst, when he comes out of a church door of a Sunday afternoon.”

  “This is extraordinary!” exclaimed Jasper, who, in good sooth, had not yet acquired that material part of his trade, the ability to spin a yarn—“I have always heard that it was certain death to venture in the water, among sharks!”

  “I forgot to say, that the lads always took capstan-bars, or gunners’ handspikes, or crows with them, to rap the beasts over the noses if they got to be troublesome. No—no—I have no liking for bears and wolves, though a whale, in my eye, is very much the same sort of fish as a red-herring, after it is dried and salted. Mabel and I, had better stick to the canoe.”

  “Mabel would do well to change canoes,” added Jasper. “This of mine is empty, and even Pathfinder will allow that my eye is surer than his own, on the water.”

  “That I will cheerfully, boy. The water belongs to your gifts, and no one will deny that you have improved them to the utmost. You are right enough in believing that the Sarjeant’s daughter will be safer in your canoe than in this, and, though I would gladly keep her near myself, I have her welfare too much at heart, not to give her honest advice. Bring your canoe close alongside, Jasper, and I will give you what you must consider as a very precious treasure.”

  “I do so consider it—” returned the youth, not losing a moment in complying with the request, when Mabel passed from one canoe to the other, taking her seat on the effects which had hitherto composed its sole cargo.

  As soon as this arrangement was made, the canoes separated a short distance, and the paddles were used, though with great care to avoid making any noise. The conversation gradually ceased, and as the dreaded rift was approached, all became impressed with the gravity of the moment. That their enemies would endeavor to reach this point before them, was almost certain, and it seemed so little probable any one should attempt to pass it, in the profound obscurity which reigned, that Pathfinder was confident parties were on both sides of the river, in the hope of intercepting them when they might land. He would not have made the proposal he did, had he not felt sure of his own ability to convert this very anticipation of success, into a means of defeating the plans of the Iroquois. As the arrangement now stood, however, every thing depended on the skill of those who guided the canoes, for should either hit a rock, if not split asunder, it would almost certainly be upset, and then would come not only all the hazards of the river itself but, for Mabel, the certainty of falling into the hands of her pursuers. The utmost circumspection consequently became necessary, and each one was too much engrossed with his own thoughts, to feel a disposition to utter more than was called for, by the exigencies of the case.

  As the canoes stole silently along, the roar of the rift became audible, and it required all the fortitude of Cap, to keep his seat, while these boding sounds were approached, amid a darkness that scarcely permitted a view of the outlines of the wooded shore, and of the gloomy vault above his head. He retained a vivid impression of the Falls, and his imagination was not now idle, in swelling the dangers of the rift to a level with those of the headlong descent he had that day made, and even to increase them, under the influence of doubt and uncertainty. In this, however, the old mariner was mistaken, for the Oswego rift, and the Oswego Falls are very different in their characters and violence, the former being no more than a rapid, that glances among shallows and rocks, while the latter really deserved the name it bore, as has been already shown.

  Mabel certainly felt distrust and apprehension, but her entire situation was so novel, and her reliance on her guides so great, that she retained a self-command that might not have existed had she clearer perceptions of the truth, or been better acquainted with the helplessness of man, when placed in opposition to the power and majesty of nature.

  “That is the spot you have mentioned?” she said to Jasper, when the roar of the rift first came fresh and distinct on her ear.

  “It is; and I beg you to have confidence in me. We are not old acquaintances, Mabel, but we live many days in one, in this wilderness. I think, already, that I have known you years.”

  “And I do not feel as if you were a stranger to me, Jasper. I have every reliance on your skill, as well as on your disposition to serve me.”

  “We shall see—we shall see. Pathfinder is striking the rapids too near the centre of the river. The best of the water is closer to the eastern shore; but I cannot make him hear me, now. Hold firmly to the canoe, Mabel, and fear nothing.”

  At the next moment, the swift current sucked them into the rift, and for three or four minutes, the awe-struck, rather than the alarmed, girl, saw nothing around her but sheets of glancing foam; heard nothing but the roar of waters. Twenty times did the canoe appear about to dash against some curling and bright wave, that showed itself even amid that obscurity, and as often did it glide away, again, unharmed; impelled by the vigorous arm of him who governed its movements. Once, and once only, did Jasper seem to lose command of his frail bark, during which brief space it fairly whirled entirely round, but, by a desperate effort, he brought it again under control, recovered the lost channel, and was soon rewarded for all his anxiety by finding himself floating quietly in the deep water below the rapids, secure from every danger, and without having taken in enough of the element to serve for a draught.

  “All is over, Mabel,” the young man cheerfully cried. “The danger is past, and you may now, indeed, hope to meet your father, this very night.”

  “God be praised! Jasper, we shall owe this great happiness to you!”

  “The Pathfinder may claim a full share in the merit—but what has become of the other canoe?”

  “I see something near us on the water—Is it not the boat of our friends?”

  A few strokes of the paddle brought Jasper to the side of the object in question. It was the other canoe, empty and bottom upwards. No sooner did the young man ascertain this fact, than he began to search for the swimmers, and to his great joy, Cap was soon discovered drifting down with the current, the old seaman preferring the chances of drowning, to those of landing among savages. He was hauled into the canoe, though not without difficulty, and then the search ended; for Jasper was persuaded that the Pathfinder would wade to the shore, the water being shallow, in preference to abandoning his beloved rifle.

  The remainder of the passage was short, though made amid darkness and doubt. After a short pause, a dull roaring sound was heard, which at times resembled the mutterings of distant thunder, and then again brought with it the washing of waters. Jasper announced to his companions that they now heard the surf of the lake. Low, curved spits of land lay before them, into the bay formed by one of which the canoe glided, and then it shot up noiselessly upon a gravelly beach. The transition that followed was so hurried and great, that Mabel scarce knew what passed. In the course of a few minutes, however, sentinels had been passed, a gate was opened, and the agitated girl found herself in the arms of a parent who was almost a stranger to her.

>   Chapter VIII

  “A land of love, and a land of light,

  Withouten sun; or moon, or night:

  Where the river swa’d a living stream,

  And the light a pure celestial beam:

  The land of vision it would seem,

  A still, an everlasting dream.”

  —Hogg, The Queen’s Wake, “Kilmeny,” ll. 46–51.

  * * *

  THE REST that succeeds fatigue, and which attends a newly awakened sense of security, is generally sweet and deep. Such was the fact with Mabel, who did not rise from her humble pallet, such a bed as a serjeant’s daughter might claim in a remote frontier post, until long after the garrison had obeyed the usual summons of the drum, and had assembled at the early parade. Serjeant Dunham, on whose shoulders fell the task of attending to these ordinary and daily duties, had got through all his morning avocations, and was beginning to think of his breakfast, ere his child left her room and came into the fresh air, equally bewildered, delighted, and grateful, at the novelty and security of her new situation.

  At the time of which we are writing, Oswego was one of the extreme frontier posts of the British possessions on this continent. It had not been long occupied, and was garrisoned by a battalion of a regiment that had been originally Scotch, but into which many Americans had been received, since its arrival in this country, an innovation that had led the way to Mabel’s father filling the humble but responsible situation of the oldest serjeant. A few young officers also, who were natives of the Colonies, were to be found in this corps. The fort, itself, like most works of that character, was better adapted to resist an attack of savages, than to withstand a regular siege, but the great difficulty of transporting heavy artillery and other necessaries, rendered the occurrence of the latter a probability so remote, as scarcely to enter into the estimate of the engineers who had planned the defences. These were bastions of earth and logs, a dry ditch, a stockade, a parade of considerable extent, and barracks of logs, that answered the double purpose of dwellings and fortifications. A few light field-pieces stood in the area of the fort, ready to be conveyed to any point where they might be wanted, and one or two heavy iron guns looked out from the summits of the advanced angles, so many admonitions to the audacious to respect their power.

  When Mabel, quitting the convenient, but comparatively retired hut where her father had been permitted to place her, issued into the pure air of the morning, she found herself at the foot of a bastion, that lay invitingly before her, with a promise of giving a coup d’œil of all that had been concealed in the darkness of the preceding night. Tripping up the grassy ascent, the light-hearted as well as light-footed girl found herself, at once, on a point where the sight, at a few changing glances, could take in all the external novelties of her new situation.

  To the southward lay the forest through which she had been journeying so many weary days, and which had proved so full of danger. It was separated from the stockade, by a belt of open land, that had been principally cleared of its wood, to form the massive constructions around her. This glacis, for such in fact was its military uses, might have covered a hundred acres, but with it every sign of civilization ceased. All beyond was forest, that dense, interminable forest that Mabel could now picture to herself, through her recollections, with its hidden, glassy lakes, its dark, rolling streams, and its world of nature!

  Turning from this view, our heroine felt her cheek fanned by a fresh and grateful breeze such as she had not experienced since quitting the far-distant coast. Here a new scene presented itself. Although expected, it was not without a start, and a low exclamation indicative of pleasure, that the eager eyes of the girl drank in its beauties. To the north and east, and west, in every direction, in short, over one entire half of the novel panorama lay a field of rolling waters. The element was neither of that glassy green which distinguishes the American waters in general, nor yet of the deep blue of the ocean; the colour being of a slightly amber hue, that scarcely affected its limpidity. No land was to be seen, with the exception of the adjacent coast, which stretched to the right and left, in an unbroken outline of forest, with wide bays, and low head-lands, or points. Still, much of the shore was rocky, and into its caverns the sluggish waters occasionally rolled, producing a hollow sound, that resembled the concussions of a distant gun. No sail whitened the surface, no whale, or other fish gambolled on its bosom, no sign of use, or service, rewarded the longest and most minute gaze, at its boundless expanse. It was a scene, on one side, of apparently endless forest while a waste of seemingly interminable water spread itself on the other. Nature had appeared to delight in producing grand effects, by setting two of her principal agents in bold relief to each other, neglecting details; the eye turning from the broad carpet of leaves, to the still broader field of fluid, from the endless but gentle heavings of the lake, to the holy calm, and poetical solitude of the forest, with wonder and delight.

  Mabel Dunham, though unsophisticated, like most of her countrywomen of that period, and ingenuous and frank as any warm-hearted and sincere-minded girl well could be, was not altogether without a feeling for the poetry of this beautiful earth of ours. Though she could scarcely be said to be educated at all, for few of her sex at that day, and in this country, received much more than the rudiments of plain English instruction, still she had been taught much more than was usual for young women in her own station in life, and, in one sense certainly, she did credit to her teaching. The widow of a Field Officer, who formerly belonged to the same regiment as her father, had taken the child in charge, at the death of its mother, and under the care of this lady, Mabel had acquired some tastes, and many ideas, which otherwise might always have remained strangers to her. Her situation in the family had been less that of a domestic, than of a humble companion, and the results were quite apparent, in her attire, her language, her sentiments, and even in her feelings; though neither perhaps rose to the level of those which would properly characterize a lady. She had lost the coarser and less refined habits and manners of one in her original position, without having quite reached a point that disqualified her for the situation in life that the accidents of birth and fortune would probably compel her to fill. All else that was distinctive and peculiar in her, belonged to natural character.

  With such antecedents, it will occasion the reader no wonder, if he learns that Mabel viewed the novel scene before her, with a pleasure far superior to that produced by vulgar surprise. She felt its ordinary beauties, as most would have felt them, but she had also a feeling for its sublimity; for that softened solitude, that calm grandeur, and eloquent repose that ever pervades broad views of natural objects which are yet undisturbed by the labors and uneasy struggles of man.

  “How beautiful!” she exclaimed, unconscious of speaking, as she stood on the solitary bastion, facing the air from the lake, and experiencing the genial influence of its freshness pervading both her body and her mind. “How very beautiful; and yet how singular!”

  The words, and the train of her ideas, were interrupted by a touch of a finger on her shoulder, and turning, in the expectation of seeing her father, Mabel found Pathfinder at her side. He was leaning quietly on his long rifle, and laughing in his quiet manner, while with an outstretched arm, he swept over the whole panorama of land and water.

  “Here you have both our domains,” he said, “Jasper’s and mine. The lake is for him, and the woods are for me. The lad sometimes boasts of the breadth of his dominions, but I tell him my trees make as broad a plain on the face of this ’arth, as all his water. Well, Mabel, you are fit for either, for I do not see that fear of the Mingos, or night marches can destroy your pretty looks.”

  “It is a new character for the Pathfinder to appear in, to compliment a silly girl.”

  “Not silly, Mabel; no, not in the least silly. The Sarjeant’s daughter would do discredit to her worthy father were she to do, or say, any thing that, in common honesty, could be called silly.”

  “Then she must take c
are and not put too much faith, in treacherous, flattering words. But, Pathfinder, I rejoice to see you among us again, for, though Jasper did not seem to feel much uneasiness, I was afraid some accident might have happened to you, and your friend, on that frightful rift.”

  “The lad knows us both, and was sartain that we should not drown, which is scarcely one of my gifts. It would have been hard swimming, of a sartainty, with a long-barrelled rifle in the hands, and what between the game, and the savages, and the French, Killdeer and I have gone through too much in company, to part very easily. No—no—we waded ashore, the rift being shallow enough for that, with small exceptions, and we landed with our arms in our hands. We had to take our time for it, on account of the Iroquois, I will own, but, as soon as the skulking vagabonds saw the lights, that the sarjeant sent down to your canoe, we well understood they would decamp, since a visit might have been expected from some of the garrison. So it was only sitting patiently on the stones, for an hour, and all the danger was over. Patience is the greatest of virtues in a woodsman.”

  “I rejoice to hear this, for fatigue itself could scarcely make me sleep, for thinking of what might befal you.”

  “Lord bless your tender little heart, Mabel! But this is the way, with all you gentle ones. I must say, on my part, howsever, that I was right glad to see the lanterns come down to the water side, which I knew to be a sure sign of your safety. We hunters and guides are rude beings, but we have our feelin’s, and our idees, as well as any giniral in the army. Both Jasper and I would have died, before you should have come to harm, we would!”

  “I thank you for all you did for me, Pathfinder; from the bottom of my heart, I thank you, and depend on it my father shall know it. I have already told him much, but have still a duty to perform, on this subject.”